Hey teacher...
...leave those kids alone!
About a year ago, at a Pizza Express in Bath, Captain Damo was explaining to my fiance and me, just how much fun he had when he attended a company Tai Chi event. His company had put on a week of wellbeing or something like that, and Tai Chi was one of the events. Mr CD proceeded to tell us about how the slow moving exercise and the odd channeling stuff was very convincing for him. It took me almost a year to sign up for a class myself. I joined the Mountain River School (note the firm and fluid name) and last week was my first class. It was good, but I was a tad miffed at the exercises. This week, the Teacher started to show his reason for the madness. I discovered just what Mr CD meant about firmness in structure. We were taught to move in a certain way, which felt odd (angles and weight balance etc.) But then he came around and started to push against us, and none of us budged. He then told us to move any part of the structure, mainly the legs if possible, no matter what we moved, we were not as firm as before. Infact any pulling action buckled us all to the ground. He repeated this with the yin-yang move, where we learnt we could support his weight via limpwristed stance (kid you not) but then as soon as we turned our fingers up, we lost firmness. He then showed how the slow moving arm movements were akin to the wax-on/wax-off movements of Mr Miyagi. I actually could parry his punches with no effort. But then he used me as a dummy (seems I have advanced pecs that pop out, so had the entire class touching me up, ooer) to demonstrate how Tension is the Opponents weapon. As I went to move to strike, my pecs would tense around the shoulder, and he showed how one of the movements could be used to just gently push at a pressure point. Stopped me dead. Very impressive indeed.
He left us with an inkling of how next week we'll put together the firm (legs) and fluid (arms) exercises we've learnt in two weeks. Looking forward to it.
Friday is Diwali - the Indian New Years Eve (for those who don't know). I am on holiday - yipeeee. Alas, I will have to go for a run. I signed up for the nike 10k nocturnal, but haven't run since my peroneal tendon incident a few weeks ago. I am going to have to run on Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday, and if by Monday I can move without pain still, I will do the run. Otherwise I'll have to cancel :(
You see, today is all about me me me!
--
dp
About a year ago, at a Pizza Express in Bath, Captain Damo was explaining to my fiance and me, just how much fun he had when he attended a company Tai Chi event. His company had put on a week of wellbeing or something like that, and Tai Chi was one of the events. Mr CD proceeded to tell us about how the slow moving exercise and the odd channeling stuff was very convincing for him. It took me almost a year to sign up for a class myself. I joined the Mountain River School (note the firm and fluid name) and last week was my first class. It was good, but I was a tad miffed at the exercises. This week, the Teacher started to show his reason for the madness. I discovered just what Mr CD meant about firmness in structure. We were taught to move in a certain way, which felt odd (angles and weight balance etc.) But then he came around and started to push against us, and none of us budged. He then told us to move any part of the structure, mainly the legs if possible, no matter what we moved, we were not as firm as before. Infact any pulling action buckled us all to the ground. He repeated this with the yin-yang move, where we learnt we could support his weight via limpwristed stance (kid you not) but then as soon as we turned our fingers up, we lost firmness. He then showed how the slow moving arm movements were akin to the wax-on/wax-off movements of Mr Miyagi. I actually could parry his punches with no effort. But then he used me as a dummy (seems I have advanced pecs that pop out, so had the entire class touching me up, ooer) to demonstrate how Tension is the Opponents weapon. As I went to move to strike, my pecs would tense around the shoulder, and he showed how one of the movements could be used to just gently push at a pressure point. Stopped me dead. Very impressive indeed.
He left us with an inkling of how next week we'll put together the firm (legs) and fluid (arms) exercises we've learnt in two weeks. Looking forward to it.
Friday is Diwali - the Indian New Years Eve (for those who don't know). I am on holiday - yipeeee. Alas, I will have to go for a run. I signed up for the nike 10k nocturnal, but haven't run since my peroneal tendon incident a few weeks ago. I am going to have to run on Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Monday, and if by Monday I can move without pain still, I will do the run. Otherwise I'll have to cancel :(
You see, today is all about me me me!
--
dp
The other New Year's Eve is also 'you you you' as well! :-)
[sigh]